Taxacom: Tropicos and gender of names

Tue Feb 8 02:47:00 CST 2022

That Crataegus is feminine should come as no
surprise: it is a tree. I remember, back in my
schooldays, my teacher in the classics pointing out
that trees, ships and islands are always feminine.
Cedrus, Quercus, Ulmus, &c. are feminine.

In 'botany' there is no explicit rule about defaults,
but from context it seems clear enough that if it
looks like an adjective, it is an adjective unless
the protologue contains evidence that it is a noun.

I would agree that any decent database should have 
a field that notes if the second or third part of a 
name at the rank of species or below is a noun. 
However, if there are databases which do indeed 
contain that information, these would appear to be 
few and far between. 

And although Tropicos is not free of error, I would
certainly not hesitate to say that it is one of the 
top databases on nomenclature and taxonomy that is 
out there.

Paul

> Op 07-02-2022 22:56 schreef Douglas Yanega via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>:
> 
> While this is interesting in certain ways, it is - practically speaking 
> - not very useful for determining whether a name is properly 
> gender-matched insofar as the rules of the Botanical Code (and there may 
> be some very fundamental differences between the Botanical Code and the 
> Zoological Code).
> 
> It doesn't actually tell a naive user, anywhere, whether a genus is 
> masculine, feminine, or neuter; you can only make assumptions about this.
> 
> It doesn't actually tell a naive user whether a species epithet is a 
> declinable adjective or a noun; you can only make assumptions about this.
> 
> For example, when I look up Crataegus succincta, am I supposed to assume 
> that Crataegus is feminine, or to assume that "succincta" is a noun? I'm 
> not a naive user, so I'm forced to assume that Crataegus is feminine 
> (which is really confusing), but other people might not easily come to 
> that conclusion.
> 
> As for differences between Codes, the ICZN specifies that if a name can 
> be either a noun or an adjective, to treat it as a noun by default. 
> Accordingly, in zoology you can have names that are *apparent* 
> mismatches, such as "Hemiopsida nanus", when the epithet is a term that 
> can be a noun. I've looked at a lot of the same epithets in this 
> Tropicos file, and can't find a single mismatch, suggesting that 
> botanists assume everything is adjectival by default (either that, or 
> this database automates gender agreement, which could be VERY 
> misleading). As such, I would never recommend this resource to a 
> zoological taxonomist who was interested in gender agreement.
> 
> Honestly, a taxonomist needing guidance can do better looking things up 
> in Wiktionary, which - despite a distinct small percentage of errors and 
> omissions - is *generally* pretty reliable in giving exactly the sorts 
> of details needed to adhere to the Code.
> 
> For example:
> 
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2Fpumilus%23Latin&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cd27eab911efb46a38ed408d9eadf93e1%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637799068971391343%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=B801jZ5tzC48ZZyqY4d6RsQtmSJzStdrEchu%2BsNgTl0%3D&reserved=0 correctly indicates that 
> pumilus can be either a noun or an adjective in Latin, both meaning 
> "dwarf". It does not, however, point out that "pumila" and "pumilum" 
> could also be nouns.
> 
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2Fnanus%23Latin&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cd27eab911efb46a38ed408d9eadf93e1%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637799068971391343%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=lK7CqZImD8mK5rbA%2FdlS7oXeRQnhdVV8oCAwWLXcxwY%3D&reserved=0 indicates that nanus (and 
> nana and nanum, all also meaning "dwarf") can only be a noun in Latin, 
> but this runs counter to the overwhelming usage as an adjective by 
> taxonomists, and at least a few lexicons say it can be an adjective.
> 
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2Fsagittarius&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cd27eab911efb46a38ed408d9eadf93e1%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637799068971391343%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=UnI6u36kOwGROQ3Y9hTQSWc3pKdyE6yRjS0k7s6WFa0%3D&reserved=0 gives another example of a 
> word that can be either a noun or an adjective, though again the 
> feminine and neuter forms are not listed as nouns.
> 
> Perseus has another good resource, though also with quirks - for example:
> 
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.perseus.tufts.edu%2Fhopper%2Fmorph%3Fl%3Dpumilus%26la%3Dla%23lexicon&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cd27eab911efb46a38ed408d9eadf93e1%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637799068971391343%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=sSJSb%2FmZ9IIEVm3kuSdJ1ZLcj6r1Wj4NPUTnmRrILEI%3D&reserved=0 is 
> fine, but it yields no response at all for either pumila or pumilum, not 
> even as adjectives.
> 
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.perseus.tufts.edu%2Fhopper%2Fmorph%3Fl%3Dsagittarius%26la%3Dla%23lexicon&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cd27eab911efb46a38ed408d9eadf93e1%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637799068971391343%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=tZM9J0Wt8EMIkHyANXE7PqWc4nx4imdN00K4qdWi49c%3D&reserved=0 
> likewise shows that sagittarius can be either a noun or an adjective, 
> and 
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.perseus.tufts.edu%2Fhopper%2Fmorph%3Fl%3Dsagittarium%26la%3Dla%23lexicon&data=04%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cd27eab911efb46a38ed408d9eadf93e1%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637799068971391343%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=ffQXlxkha5qAamJT4TaNTmR39wIgmjlbedJA05yCMb0%3D&reserved=0 
> shows that sagittarium can be either a noun or an adjective, but gives 
> no response at all for sagittaria.
> 
> The point is, there are resources, but they must be viewed with some 
> circumspection, as they often conflict with one another, or even 
> internally. This is one of the main reason I advocate making lists of 
> actual published names available giving definitive statements of these 
> parameters, rather than compelling taxonomists to do the work 
> themselves; depending on one's training and one's sources, the 
> conclusions will often be inconsistent or contradictory, and that is no 
> help to the community.
> 
> Peace,
> 
> -- 
> Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
> Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega.